Warning: The following summary contains minor spoilers for the final chapters of Chemistry. It may seem like a lot of information regarding the plot of Freshman Orientation, but it's nothing more than you'd find on a book jacket. I promise that reading this will not ruin the sequel for you, though it may basically tell you what is going to happen in the final two chapters of Chemistry.
After a drug relapse that almost sends him to prison and a one‐night stand that nearly costs him his best friend, Garen Anderson decides that what he really needs is to get his act together. He needs to figure out how to have fun that doesn’t involve felonies, and he needs to date people who aren’t legal family members, and he probably needs to stop running away from home. And so begins his quest for a normal (second) senior year, a normal boyfriend, a normal job. Sure, he’s the only student who needs to ride out cocaine cravings during a student council session, and yes, sometimes he has to skip drama practice or cancel plans with his new boyfriend to catch an Alcoholics Anonymous meeting. But soon enough, he has everything he wants… sort of.
All things considered, Alex Baker is the least complicated person to ever graduate from Lakewood High School. Well, he is if he overlooks the fact that he’s kissed almost all his friends, or that he’s getting sucked into the group of completely screwed‐up people who run his college’s gay‐straight alliance, or that he doesn’t know how to tell his alcoholic father that he’s bisexual, or that his trainwreck, junkie mother suddenly wants to be involved with his life after having disappeared for so long that he assumed she was dead, or that he’s still not sure what the boundaries of his semi‐relationship with James are, or that he’s in love with his best friend, who he now lives with. As long as he overlooks all that, he’s great.
Ben McCutcheon has the worst taste in men. After crushing on his supposedly straight best friend for a year when he was fifteen, losing his virginity in a round of sado‐masochistic sex with a homophobic closet‐case from his church’s youth group, and sleeping with a pair of stepbrothers who were more interested in each other than in him, he’s prepared to give up men altogether. At first, things are great; it gives him time to focus on passing his impossible classes at Yale, trying to make friends with some of his filthy rich, snobby classmates, and figuring out some way to overcome his own addiction to self‐injury. He’s convinced that this is the best decision he’s ever made… and then he meets Orlando Gutierrez, who is gorgeous, brilliant, and charming. And thirty‐two years old. And married. And Ben’s professor. That “bad taste in men” streak may be a little harder to break than he thought it would be…
After a drug relapse that almost sends him to prison and a one‐night stand that nearly costs him his best friend, Garen Anderson decides that what he really needs is to get his act together. He needs to figure out how to have fun that doesn’t involve felonies, and he needs to date people who aren’t legal family members, and he probably needs to stop running away from home. And so begins his quest for a normal (second) senior year, a normal boyfriend, a normal job. Sure, he’s the only student who needs to ride out cocaine cravings during a student council session, and yes, sometimes he has to skip drama practice or cancel plans with his new boyfriend to catch an Alcoholics Anonymous meeting. But soon enough, he has everything he wants… sort of.
All things considered, Alex Baker is the least complicated person to ever graduate from Lakewood High School. Well, he is if he overlooks the fact that he’s kissed almost all his friends, or that he’s getting sucked into the group of completely screwed‐up people who run his college’s gay‐straight alliance, or that he doesn’t know how to tell his alcoholic father that he’s bisexual, or that his trainwreck, junkie mother suddenly wants to be involved with his life after having disappeared for so long that he assumed she was dead, or that he’s still not sure what the boundaries of his semi‐relationship with James are, or that he’s in love with his best friend, who he now lives with. As long as he overlooks all that, he’s great.
Ben McCutcheon has the worst taste in men. After crushing on his supposedly straight best friend for a year when he was fifteen, losing his virginity in a round of sado‐masochistic sex with a homophobic closet‐case from his church’s youth group, and sleeping with a pair of stepbrothers who were more interested in each other than in him, he’s prepared to give up men altogether. At first, things are great; it gives him time to focus on passing his impossible classes at Yale, trying to make friends with some of his filthy rich, snobby classmates, and figuring out some way to overcome his own addiction to self‐injury. He’s convinced that this is the best decision he’s ever made… and then he meets Orlando Gutierrez, who is gorgeous, brilliant, and charming. And thirty‐two years old. And married. And Ben’s professor. That “bad taste in men” streak may be a little harder to break than he thought it would be…
